Paul Otellini Makes The Case For Intel

Microsoft is detailing its plan to push the next edition of Windows onto processors from Nvidia, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm. Apple is doing something even more dangerous: it’s designing its own processors for smartphones and tablets. Notebook computers could be next.

In response, Intel is hustling to skinny down the processors it designs for PCs and servers so they can be crammed into ever thinner, more mobile devices. Intel Chief Paul Otellini will talk about the Santa Clara, Calif. processor manufacturer’s plans Tuesday to a crowd of hundreds of developers who have plenty of options right now.

Some live notes from Otellini’s talk.

10:00 – Update on Intel’s smartphone plans. Otellini announces a smartphone used in a demo earlier in his keynote speech is built around Intel’s Medfield mobile platform. Intel-based smartphones are still due next year, Otellini promises. He doesn’t say who will build them. Otellini brings Google‘s Android chief, Andy Rubin, to the stage. Going forward all future releases of Google’s Android mobile operating system will be optimized for Intel’s processors, Rubin says.

9:45 — Security has been a bullet point in every Otellini appearance since its acquisition of McAfee. So Otellini brings McAfee’s Candace Worley to the stage to talk about scary malware. The stuff tends to worm its way into the kernel level of a PC’s operating system. One solution: a combination of software and hardware that can monitor how software behaves so that previously unknown threats can be detected. Intel and McAfee call this approach ‘DeepSafe,’ technology that will launch as part of a McAfee enterprise product later this year for PCs using Intel ‘Core’ processors.

9:30 – Time for a look at some devices. First, a look at Cisco‘s Cius tablet/desktop phone setup built around an Intel processor and Google’s Android operating system. Users can tap into apps curated by Cisco, and if an IT manager is game, thousands of Android apps. Users can also pick up the screen and useit as a tablet. Another demo: a desktop computer that makes use of a pair of new Intel technologies, Intel ‘pair and share’ and ‘teleport extender.’ The idea is to let usersbump media like movies from a smartphone to their desktop computer, and even let them take calls and SMS messages on a PC linked to their smartphone.

9:20 — Otellini gets to Intels’ latest big idea: the UltraBook. It’s lighter, sleeker, lasts longer on a single charge. It”s more responsive and engaging, secure, and affordable, Otellini says, making it “the new norm” for computing. The first examples are shipping now. Intel’s nextgeneration processor, code named Ivy Bridge, will accelerate that next year. After that comes ‘Haswell,’ That design will reduce the use of standby power by 30%, and reduce the overall ‘platform power’ by a factor of more than twenty. That means 10 days of connected standby usageon a single charge. Translation: some very sweet Windows notebooks: “We believe Windows 8 on Intel architecture will transform the computing experience,” Otellini says. Quck demo: a next gen processor hooked up to a solar cell powered by a lightbulb playing a cat video.

9:15 — Otellini starts with the big picture, and then moves to walloping his audience with big numbers. Two years ago, Otellini says, he described a shift from the ‘personal computer’ to ‘personal computing.’ The Internet and pervasive connectivity has led to more devices, and more experiences, et cetera. Now the numbers: there are now 80 Quintillion transistors in use right now. Over the nextten years, we’ll get past the 1 sextillion mark. Intel, meanwhile, is cramming ever more of those transitors onto each slice of silicon. Intelis already preparing to manufacture transitors as little as 14 nanometers across. Intel has more than 14 million developers, who have built more than 6 million applications — ten times the number of apps in the largest app store in the world.

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